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COLLEGE BASKETBALL Prejudice hurting women's college hoops Comment By Michelle Kaufman Miami Herald MailTribune.com By Michelle Kaufman Miami Herald Posted Nov. 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM By Michelle Kaufman Miami Herald Posted Nov. 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM » Social News In an age when gay marriage has gained acceptance across the United States, when the Apple CEO, and an NFL and NBA player have come out, when the WNBA targets gay fans, homophobia remains endemic in women’s college basketball. It is an issue that has plagued the sport for decades, but few talk about it. Cindy Russo, who has coached women’s basketball at Florida International University for 40 years, won more than 700 games and seen the sport make great strides, said homophobia remains as much a problem today as it was decades ago. Parents of recruits still sometimes ask college coaches: “Do you have any gay players on your team?” Heterosexual coaches routinely prey on parents’ fears and religious beliefs, using homophobia as a recruiting tactic to steer high school players away from unmarried female coaches. “There is a fear among parents that if their son or daughter is around a gay person, it is going to make them gay, like it’s a contagious disease,” Russo said. “There is still so much prejudice and ignorance out there. Male coaches, and some women, will say to parents, ‘Do you know so-and-so’s gay?’ It just takes that to put a little doubt in their minds. And it works. “I’ve had the question asked many times, how I feel about gay players on the team, or if I have any gay players on my team. I tell them, ‘Honestly, it’s not something I talk about. I can tell you if there are gay people on my team, they are respectable and have high integrity, and to me, that’s all that matters.’ I’m to an age where you just get tired of it.” Whether the coach is a lesbian or just perceived as one, the stigma is the same. That helps explain why out of 350 Division I women’s basketball coaches, only one is openly gay — Sherri Murrell at Portland State. In summer 2009, the team’s media relations director asked Murrell if she’d like a photo of her family in the media guide. She thought, “Sure, why not? What’s the big deal? The people who know me know I’m gay, anyway.” She figured it was time to stop hiding. She submitted a photo of herself, her partner, and their twin daughters. The word was out, and news hit the media. No Division I coach had ever publicly declared herself gay, and none have since. She found most people surprisingly accepting. “For many years, I stayed in the closet because I heard horror stories about recruiting,” Murrell said by phone. “I saw older coaches in the closet and just thought that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The world around us is changing, but our profession is still in the Dark Ages. I was terrified, but I took the plunge, and thankfully, landed in safe water. “Honestly, I have not had one negative experience. I have had support from 80-year-old boosters, my university, everyone. I know that geographically, it’s easier in Portland than some places in the South, but I’m here to tell lesbian coaches out there, ‘We’ll be OK. Let go of the fear.’ “It was unbelievably liberating to take the white elephant out of the room. Nobody has to tippy-toe around me anymore. Too many darn good coaches have left coaching because of the homophobia. They just couldn’t do a double life, and that breaks my heart.” One longtime Division I coach, who requested anonymity, left the profession because she grew tired of the discrimination. She is a lesbian, in her mid-50s, and recalled a typical recruiting trip as a Big Ten assistant. She was with the head coach in the living room of a highly touted recruit in Detroit. The recruit’s mother asked the head coach, “You don’t have those kind of people working for you, do you?” The coach replied, “Absolutely not. I would not stand for it.” The gay assistant felt a pit in her stomach. But she stayed silent. For three decades. “We felt we had to hide to keep our jobs,” she said. The anti-gay sentiment is not always that blatant, but the undercurrent is still there, and it has driven generations of female coaches out of the business or deeper into the closet. Often, the homophobia is thinly veiled, spoken in code words all too familiar within the sport’s inner circles. Heterosexual coaches on the recruiting trail flaunt their straightness with photos of spouses and children, boasting that their programs are steeped in “family values” while insinuating that a competing coach is gay or runs a gay-tolerant program that does not foster a “family culture.” When Robin Pingeton was introduced as head coach at the University of Missouri in April 2010, she had her husband and 3-year-old son by her side. She said: “I’m a Christian that happens to be a coach. … I’m very blessed to have my staff here. This is something very unique, I think, for Division I women’s basketball to have a staff that the entire staff is married with kids. Family is important to us, and we live it every day.” Homophobia and the exodus of lesbian coaches might at least partly explain why so many men are being hired to coach women’s sports. When Title IX legislation passed in 1972, requiring equal sports opportunities for females, more than 90 percent of women’s teams were coached by women. In 2013, it was less than 40 percent, according to separate studies by Brooklyn College professors Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter, and the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota. “The numbers do not lie,” said Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center. “It certainly is not the case that there is only one lesbian in women’s basketball. “That fact alone, that only one has come out, is such a powerful and symbolic statement about how much fear there is. It’s going to take a very well-established, well-respected Division I coach to come out. Someone is going to have to be the Jackie Robinson of women’s college coaching.” Murrell had no intention of being a trailblazer. “I didn’t want to be Googled and the first thing that comes up is ‘Only Out Lesbian Coach,’” Murrell said. “But after getting so many heartbreaking emails and calls from coaches, saying things like, ‘I want to be out and I’m not even out to my grandmother,’ or ‘I want to be out but my head coach is homophobic,’ I realized I am helping make change.” Pat Griffin, professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has been conducting LGBT sports education workshops for more than 20 years. She hasn’t seen as much change as she would like. “I call it the glass closet,” Griffin said. “Coaches are in the closet, but everyone knows they’re there. If you’ve lived your whole life believing it’s necessary to conceal your private life from everybody in your professional life, it’s really difficult to make that change and believe it’s going to be OK if you come out. “We’ve reached a point where older coaches who go by old-school philosophy that you have to be closeted in order to stay in the profession and be successful in a sad way have become an obstacle to younger coaches coming out.” By Michelle Kaufman Miami Herald MailTribune.com By Michelle Kaufman Miami Herald Posted Nov. 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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